Bolton fighter promises he'll be more cerebral in his approach now he's switched training camps

Amir Khan has promised new coach Virgil Hunter he will fight with brains not balls in the quest to ­regain his world champion ­status.

Khan lost his WBA light-­welterweight crown in a shock defeat by tough American Danny Garcia in July – the second of his career or third if you include the controversial and flawed Lamont Peterson bout.

Either way, it once again raised questions about the 25-year-old’s ability to stand up to big punchers as well as his boxing brain.

The defeat led to the Bolton star’s split with trainer Freddie Roach and, when he makes his comeback against undefeated Mexican Carlos Molina in Los Angeles on December 15, it will instead be Hunter barking ­instructions from his corner.

Hunter has done a fantastic job in tightening up the defences of WBC and WBA super-middleweight champ Andre Ward – and Khan hopes he can do the same for him.

Khan said: “By using my brains I will definitely come back and be a world champion.

“The reason I was so successful in the Olympics was because I knew the guys I was facing were physically stronger than me and at the time I was a boy, so I never got involved and just stuck to my jab. But because I knocked a few opponents out and had a few knockdowns I thought I could stand and trade with these guys.

“I thought, ‘I’m a man now’, but maybe I made a mistake thinking that. I will still be entertaining with good, classy boxing, with hand speed and combinations, and I will still be ­exciting, but I will be boxing more cautiously.”

Blame

Khan lays the blame for his last defeat with a bad training camp, in particular the sparring partners.

He added: “The reason I was all over the place and throwing long, looping shots was because I was ­having wars in sparring, which wasn’t right for me.

“If I was sticking to instructions in sparring by boxing clever I wouldn’t have had those problems against Garcia. Whatever I do in sparring I do in the fight. The last three fights have been wars.

“If you look at the Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah fights, I had quality sparring against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, but then after that I just had raw amateurs, apart from Max Maxwell, sparring against Russians.

“At times you try to be big balls and put them in their place by putting them down. I did exactly what I did in sparring in the fight and I was being too ballsy. I need to be forgetting about being ballsy in fights now.”

Roach is seen by many as the best trainer in boxing, but Khan does not believe the communication was there with the 52-year-old in the end.

Khan said: “I can’t remember Freddie giving me any instructions at all during the Garcia fight.

“Against Peterson he didn’t give me any ­instructions until the last round when he said, ‘What the hell are you doing? I need you to win this round easy and knock him out’.

“If you look at that last round it brought the fire back into my body.

“It does work when somebody speaks to you, whereas in the other fights I was just dead.

“When I got knocked down in the third round against Garcia I wasn’t given any instructions.

“I don’t think Freddie gave up on me. He was in shock like me, he is a wicked trainer, I just needed someone who is going to be more aggressive to me, like Virgil.

Defeat

“When I trained with him recently he was telling me loads about what I was doing wrong.

“I need to be told straight because sometimes I get too complacent.”

Khan admits he feared it could all have been over after the Garcia fight if the public had turned their backs on him.

He added: “I thought that defeat would ruin my career and status, but it hasn’t affected me one bit because I’ve had so much respect.

“It was hard to come out and face people, don’t get me wrong. I was quite embarrassed at times to see people who I know and supported me that might be laughing at me. But they said, ‘We didn’t know you had so much heart to come off the floor and keeping fighting so hard’.”

He needs that heart more than ever now. And, of course, his brain.

No Hatton bout for Khan... yet

Amir Khan insists Ricky Hatton is not on his radar – for now.

There has been much speculation that
Khan and Ricky Hatton will meet – with April 2013 touted – since the
Hitman confirmed his comeback last month.

But
Khan, who is good pals with the former WBA, IBF and IBO welterweight
champion, said: “Ricky isn’t on my radar at the moment, although I know
people are talking about it.

“If
there was a big fight in Britain next year it would have to be Ricky
Hatton. I don’t think there are any other British fighters that I could
fight.”

And Los Angeles-based Khan dismissed talk of an early showdown with Sheffield’s Kell Brook.

He added: “If me and Kell fought now I don’t think it would be that big, it would just be boxing fans interested.

“I want non-boxing fans to be interested in it, like the ones that follow Ricky Hatton.”